Memeorandum

February 27, 2012

Training Them To Shoot, But Not At Us!

The Times notes the tension in Afghanistan between our strategy of training Afghan security forces while ducking incoming fire from those same forces:

American officials described a growing concern, even at the highest levels of the Obama administration and Pentagon, about the challenges of pulling off a troop withdrawal in Afghanistan that hinges on the close mentoring and training of army and police forces.

Despite an American-led training effort that has spanned years and cost tens of billions of dollars, the Afghan security forces are still widely seen as riddled with dangerously unreliable soldiers and police officers. The distrust has only deepened as a pattern of attacks by Afghan security forces on American and NATO service members, beginning years ago, has drastically worsened over the past few days. A grenade attack on Sunday, apparently by a protester, wounded at least six American soldiers.

Nearly a week of violent unrest after American personnel threw Korans into a pit of burning trash has brought into sharp relief the growing American and Afghan frustration — and, at times, open hostility — and the risks of a strategy that calls for American soldiers and civilians to work closely with Afghans.

Earlier Times coverage here, and on the reaction of the French last January.

Bush and our allies went into Afghanistan with a light footprint to avoid emulating the Soviet experience and antagonizing the locals, with dubious results. Obama has tripled our troop commitment, with dubious results. Osama is dead, let's move out and move on.

I didn't want to give away the ending in Act of Valor, but it was loosely based on the heroic acts of Master At Arms Second Class, SEAL, Michael A. Monsoor, USN, and Medal of Honor recipient. President George W. Bush presented the MoH to his parents. I bet he remembers everything about Michael A. Monsoor.

1. OBL and AQ cited US military presence in Saudi Arabia as reason for attacking US.

2. US was in Saudi Arabia protecting it (and their oil fields - a strategic interest) and deterring a repeat of Saddam's 1990 attack on Kuwait.

3. We were "containing" Saddam because Bush 41 failed to press the attack in 1991 and march all the way to Baghdad when we had the chance, largely because the US adhered to the UN "mandate" of simply ejecting Saddam from Kuwait.

5. After 9/11, the issue wasn't just whether or not Saddam had actively participated with AQ in the 9/11 attacks, but to also make sure he NEVER could in the future.

6. So, considering all this, how best to accomplish THAT goal and get US forces out of Saudi Arabia?

7. Get rid of Saddam. How, if everything else has already failed?

8. Invade Iraq, oust Saddam, and finally determine with boots on the ground whether or not the bastard had any stockpiles of WMDs or active development programs.

9. Mission accomplished.

Unfortunately, the Dems' and Europe's opposition to the war gave the Iraqi insurgents and other Arab militants the opinion that America didn't have the public will for a long fight. This gave rise to the insurgency and a prolonged 2nd phase of the war.

While this insurgency raged, Afghanistan benefitted because many of the Islamists who would have fought in the AfPak Theater flocked to the battleground in Iraq.

Because of the success of the Surge in Iraq, many of these militants decided to stay in or flock to Afghanistan instead of to their certain death in Iraq.

It was probably inevitable that Afghanistan (or somewhere else) would heat up again.

The unfortunate reality is that we are in a generational struggle with a system and culture that is completely incompatible with ours, and we will need to keep at this until one side vanquishes the other.

Spouse and I saw Act of Valor last nite. Sat on the edge of my seat the whole time and cried at the ending. A lot of action but not over the top (no eternally endless car chases)and I loved the limited dialogue. It was simple,real and NOT full of phoney baloney snappy repartee.
Well okay a little sassy when Senior was grilling Christos. But still it was not over the top.
If this movie is truly what our military is like we can all be very proud.

There's continual coverage of the school shooting in the Orwellian nightmare known as local television. Needless to say they run out of useful things to say pretty early on and it becomes a matter of bringing on the usual "experts" who excel in 20/20 hindsight but who never quite manage to prevent anything like this. Also this is a crime against one of the holiest sites in Libslam, a public school; behind only Planned Parenthood clinics and SEIU halls. That it's a gun-free zone enhances its status as, of course, it minimizes the chances for the victims.

Heaven forbid that our first black POTUS, our first black FLOTUS, our first black USAG and their staffs will go down in history as chronic screw-ups and as unmitigated disasters. That just wouldn't be politically correct. So already their shills in the MSM are rewriting history with screwy rationales which reinforce their screwy delusions, and embellishing on preposterous lies with more lies, also, for that is what they do best. Ain't America grand?

And the EU Pols opposition to Any Iraq action turned out to be less about principles and more about the threat to reliable cash flows. I'm not convinced that wasn't the same thing on the Dem side, but that's going to remain a suspicion of mine for a very, very long time, with no proof.

Powell and Armitage, have spent too much in the crockery pots in Baku and Jiddah, humoring
local potentates, the Anfal was just an over
reaction, by their view, now the likes of the late Hume Horan knew better, that's why he was replaced with a factotum like Charles Freeman,

FYI, General Colin Powell didn't push GW, Cheney or Rumsfeld to do anything. He had been relegated to the sidelines already. He didn't carry any weight, and what's more, he knew it and he came to resent it so much that, in recent years, he has viciously lashed out at Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush with his lame excuses and with his contrived, bogus bullshit, all of which are revisionist history. The guy was always just a useful idiot, a product of Affirmative Action, a clown. He wil be forgotten by history.

Great comment, fdcol. Of course, a majority of Democrats were on the same page regarding the justification for taking out Saddam at the time. (And, as we all know, a majority of Senate Democrats voted for the war, after begging for that vote in order to make up for their perfidy in 1990. The only Republican against was Lincoln Chafee. Dozens of warlike quotes from the Clintons, Jay Rockefeller, Kerry, and all the rest have been chronicled here, from before Bush's inauguration.)

They only changed their tune after recoiling in horror at the American flags flying after 9/11.

NK, fdcol - having spent a LOT of time in Iraq since 2004 (not that doing so makes me any more of an expert than anyone else) I can say I fully agree with what you two write here. Every Iraqi I've talked with, and I've talked MANY believe in Iraq as a country first, this is whether they are Shi'ts, Sun'ni or Kurds.

I believe it was Biden that wanted to partition Iraq into three countries or regions or such (a Kurd region, a Sun'ni, region and a Shi't region) but if you have been there, you know that idea is just plain silly on the face and reflects poorly on his understanding of the situation.

Narciso, There has never been an President, nor an administration, with this level of corruption an dishonsty. Libtards have zero problem with using government to attack their percieved enemies.
And the project their dishonest on their opponents to justify it.

BNP Paribas was chosen for a reason to run the books on Oil-for-Food. Mo Strong got that one done in the UN halls. All the right minded folks benefited. De Villepin, Chirac, Desmarais (largest BNP shareholders), Mo himself, Chretien (& most of the Can. UN delegation), Auchi, and the list goes on and on.

Zbigniew Brzezinski had some words of caution for the current commander in chief about his meeting next week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying Obama let himself be “humiliated” last time Bibi visited.

“Prior to the elections, they’ll be tempted to strike,” Brzezinski said of Israeli action toward Iran’s nuclear program on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” Sunday. “And this is why I think the president, when he talks to Netanyahu on March 5th, might take into account the fact that, first of all, he was humiliated the last time Netanyahu was around, and the president of the United States shouldn’t be so humiliated, and that he represents the American national interests.”

In fact, Iraq was a great validation of the Bush Strategy/Doctrine of starting a wildfire of individual freedom across the Middle East.

Start the fire and let it spread.

Sometimes I think Voldemort has intentionally phucked the whole deal to prevent 43 from receiving the CWCD.

Huh? Bush strategy was to anchor individual freedom in some state in the ME such that it could be an example and perhaps a beacon to all humans in that area who long from freedom.

Someone else mentioned Syria getting out of Lebanon. Don't forget Neda and her friends in 087-09. 44 phucked that up.

Then there's the small matter of the "Arab Spring" BINGO. That was the goal and the plan, begun with some guys on horseback in the Afghan mountains, and a year and a half later in shock and awe in Baghdad, proved the brilliance of the concept.

Alas and alak, 44 was not up to the task to capitalize of the revolutions.

We did it and we did it in a way that would make the greatest generation proud. Truth is, deep down, they, the Middle East want what we've got, they want individual freedom, they want the courage and fortitude that is part of America's DNA, as so superbly on display in America's warriors.

Here:
A young Iraqi boys takes cover behind a American Soldier who patrols toward the sound of carnage, not running away like many of the Iraqis on the curb.

America, providing a beacon, an example and hope for the world's repressed and downtrodden for since inception.

~~

Ironic that while we're working hard there, the usurper is working here to not only undo all the success, but also to enslave his so-called countrymen. Yeah, he wants us to have the same life that Iraqis experienced under sadamn.

Ask General Tommy Franks, General Norman Schwarskopf and members of their staffs what [they] think of General Colin Powell.

At one time or another, all of them have contemptuously said off the record that Powell's plan for Desert Sheild/Desert Storm was so amateurish that it would have been laughable if it hadn't been so scary that a General of Powell's level of incompetence had the president's ear at the outset of those engagements before he became discredited by his own doing. It was for that reason and for other reasons that Powell was relieved of his command of the air war over Kuwait and Iraq. Even then, to the dismay of other officers, that bumbling, incompetent twit somehow continued to have enough influence over G.H.W.Bush that he brought the ground war to a halt well short of its objectives, allowing the Iraqis to fly helicopters, instead of grounding them, also, which cost more lives, thanks to that damned fool. There's more. But that is the gist of it, except that, oh yeah, Powell was a disaster as Secretary Of State, also. In many ways, he makes Holder and Obama look heroic, if you only knew.

frau-Thanks. Digital literacy is a real danger to push because so few kids read phonetically. The print on a screen is then processed visually a la TV instead of aurally. Plus the computer is a tool. Making school about using technology is just an updated version of vocational.

I did go back and use some of what I pulled this morning to illustrate the point I was to make anyway. I may end up dreaming about the professor waxing on about manipulating the kindergartners though. It's one thing to know from reports and articles what is being pushed and figuring out why. Quite another to listen to it as a point of pride by someone who is so enthusiastically and influentially misguided.

Finally, please be careful everyone about the push to see this as a bullying story. He may have been bullied but I know the solutions for bullying and they are ugly. The old real problem, solution is a stealth means to a controversial not to be seen in the light of day end, scenario.

Ah yes, Political Correctness and Affirmative Action. They make you wonder, don't they, how this country ever got to be a Superpower without them ..., and why, now that they are firmly entrenched, this once dynamic Superpower is now well on its way to becoming a Third World Nation? Ah ditzy Liberals, they have been such a boon to this country. In their obstinate unwillingness to elevate themselves, they have brought the rest us down to their level. (sigh)